Fumo ad: 'Mom, why is that man standing in our kitchen?'

State Sen. Vincent Fumo aired the first TV spot of his re-election campaign yesterday and immediately set off fireworks with opponent Anne Dicker.

"I'm Sen. Vince Fumo and I've been fighting hard to find real solutions to Philadelphia's illegal-gun problem," the veteran lawmaker tells the camera. The ad cites praise for Fumo's gun-related work from D.A. Lynne Abraham and from Gov. Rendell.

Then the approach shifts markedly, as the camera pans to show Fumo serving pasta to a family of four.

"When families in my district sit down for dinner," Fumo says, "I want them to know that I'm fighting to keep them safe."

On the screen, Papa and Grandma take skeptical looks at the senator, and then a little girl asks: "Mom, why is that man standing in our kitchen?"

In real life, the girl is 7-year-old Sofi Snyder, the daughter of Fumo's media adviser, Ken Snyder.

"Vince was there the day she was born," Snyder said. "She grew up visiting his office and has been begging me to be in a TV commercial."

But Sofi's skepticism did not compare to Dicker's.

"Does Vince Fumo think Philadelphians are stupid?" Dicker asked in a news release, remembering that Fumo supported legislation in the mid-1990s that stripped Philadelphia and other Pennsylvania cities of any authority to regulate handguns.

Fumo replied in an interview that he was practicing the art of the possible.

Dealing with a Legislature that was hostile to any gun controls, Fumo said, he pushed through the 1995 law that requires background checks on all gun purchasers and blocks sales to those with records of violence, drug or mental-health issues.

And in the last two years, he said, he's secured $10 million for Philadelphia to prosecute illegal gun sales.

"This is probably the only thing really getting results in Philadelphia, and I'm responsible for it," Fumo said. "Pennsylvania is what it is. There's a provision in the state constitution that gives people the right to own a gun, for protection of yourself or others, and you've got to deal with that."